In Honor of SFC Shughart

Medal of Honor Recipient

Timothy G Davis

This is about my ranger buddy and friend, Randy Shughart.  Or as many of us knew him, Shuggie.  There were a few other nicknames that we used, but it was all in fun.  I have tried writing about Randy from time to time, but it's always been difficult, searching for just the right words.  We were always honest and true with each other, and that's the very best I can do now, being honest and true, even if the right words escape me.

When you’re young and events begin to unfold in your life, you move with them.  Only later do you stop to analyze those events, and wonder why.  Why did something happen one way and not the other?  Was it Fate, Coincidence, or just a part of Life’s Experiences?  Like how I first met Randy at the 2^nd Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis.  How one event before I arrived changed everything. 

I was in Airborne School and our fifth and final qualifying jump was delayed by weather.  We didn’t do it on Wednesday, as we were scheduled to.  Mother Nature has been known not to follow schedules.  Or Thursday.  Or even Friday.  We spent a lot of time in our harnesses while the First Sergeant tried to figure out where to put the next class that had already reported.  On Saturday morning, the clouds parted just long enough for us to reach altitude, jump, have our “blood” wings pounded into our chests while standing in the mud on the DZ, and turn our gear into supply.  I had my orders for Lewis and would be flying out with a few others headed to Batt. 

Except it wasn’t to be.

I was escorted to the CO’s office and informed about my younger sister.  She was killed in a freak car accident in Nebraska after passing over the border from South Dakota.  It happened the night before.  They didn’t tell me, until after my last jump.  They said it was for my own good.

I flew home and arrived at night on the last flight into Sioux Falls.  My Dad was waiting for me.  I knew this was going to be tough on all of us, especially my parents.  This was their third child to pass away.  I lost a brother to leukemia, and a sister fell out a window.  They all died in October. 

And now it was October again.

I was home a week on emergency leave and then I flew off to Fort Lewis, numb and alone.  At the replacement company, everyone I knew had already reported to the Ranger Batt.  They all went to Charlie Company.  Finally, the day arrived when a Jeep dropped me off on Battalion Headquarters’ doorstep.  I walked in and reported with my duffel bag over my shoulder.  The CSM had just decided to start sending newbies to Bravo.  I was assigned to first squad, third platoon.  A few days later, Shuggie showed up. 

I was no longer the only new guy in the company. 

We hung out together, as new guys do.  As we talked, we found out we had a lot in common.  We were both born one day apart in the same year in the Midwest in states that bordered each other.  I was born on August 12 in South Dakota and Randy was born the 13^th in Nebraska, although he was raised in Pennsylvania.  We both graduated the same year before our 18^th birthday.  Both of our fathers were veterans, and we both enjoyed hunting.  We talked a lot about different types of handguns, rifles and shotguns.  I soon had another nickname for Randy.  “Shotgun Shuggie.”  We both bought our own weapons and kept them in the company arms room. 

Shuggie wasn’t the biggest, or the strongest, or the fastest.  He had never been a jock in High School.  But as I learned from my former coaches, it’s the little guys you should watch out for, and that was true with Randy.  Sometimes, I swear, I don’t know how he did it.  There were some brutal PT sessions where I thought he’d never come back, and for that matter, any of us.  But Shuggie did.  He hung in there on every run and obstacle course we had.  He never gave up.  Never.  That’s what I liked about him.  Where others fell to the wayside in the field carrying obscene loads over rugged terrain, he was right there, holding his own.  We went on dozens of deployments and jumps around the world, day and night, and covered a lot of miles together.  We saved the world while drinking quantities of beer, and we told stories, a lot of stories, always reminiscing about home and family. 

We didn’t have much time off, but there was some.  I bought a used car and we’d drive to Bremerton Island, catch the ferry to Seattle, eat along the Waterfront and drive down I-5 to Ft. Lewis.  Sometimes we’d go to the falls where we’d dare each other to jump off of cliffs that were over sixty feet high. 

One night, there was a car accident and the company armorer was killed.  No one really knew him very well, but because Randy and I talked with him occasionally, First Sergeant Smith asked us to square his uniform away before burial.  He unlocked his room so we could do it while the company was out for PT.  I can’t tell you how strange it felt to be in that room, so quiet, touching another ranger’s uniform, and his ribbons, while Randy spit-shined his jump boots. 

My fingers brushed against something inside the breast pocket and I pulled it out.  It was a funeral notice for another ranger that had died a year before to the day, the last time the armorer had worn his Class A’s.  I showed it to Shuggie, and he took the notice and held it gingerly between his fingers.  He said something that I’ll never forget.  Something between us—something that I never thought twice about until much later…

During a block leave, Shuggie bought a truck and drove it all the way back from Pennsylvania.  He was proud of that truck, and talked about it as much as he did his family and where he grew up in rural Pennsylvania.  We both liked to talk about the outdoors.  I told him about my favorite place where I used to make a lean-to and camp out.  We spent many nights out walking the quadrangle, or over to main post.   

We played practical jokes on each other such as coin checks during the obstacle course or in the shower.  In Panama, after a few beers at the local club, Randy decided to lay down on his cot for a nap.  I took the opportunity to pour a little Cutter’s Insect Repellent on him, which can cause a slight skin irritation.  It wasn’t long before he was running for the showers.

During a night movement through the triple canopy jungle, there was a loud “tunk,” the unmistakable sound of an M203 training round being fired.  And then the explosion.  And then a scream.  Shuggie was hit in the thigh.  It was a long, unforgettable  night.  We couldn’t medevac Randy out until dawn, and only after moving to a big enough LZ for a Huey to land.  The round did some damage, but Shug was gratified to learn that all of his “parts” were still there. 

A couple of years later when I was stationed in Panama, I took Shuggie on a tour and showed him some things he hadn’t seen before.  I married there, returned to the states, and eventually went back to Central America as a civilian.

Randy was killed in action on October 3, 1993, in a dusty street in Mogadishu, Somalia.  He was posthumously awarded our nation’s highest award for bravery, the Medal of Honor. 

The average American has no idea what awaits our soldiers and their savage encounters against Third World irregulars as we attempt to alter the political equation in one tumultuous location after another.

No one does, except the few who have lived to talk about it.

I knew ever since the mid-nineties that I would dedicate a book to Randy, and in doing so, it would be a story about terrorists, Somalia, and the return to Somalia.  This has been humbly accomplished.  Although the work is fiction, what is true for anyone who has ever served, is the friendships forged in the Ranger Battalion, and how Some Battles Never End.  I hope that in some small way it helps to keep Randy’s memory alive.

I live close to that place I used to tell Randy about where I roamed the woods and camped out.  I go there once a year, on the morning of October 3.  I find a spot to sit and I write Randy a letter.  That’s my way, between ranger buddies, of remembering.

READ HOW RANDALL D. SHUGHART EARNED THE MEDAL OF HONOR